


Saucers over Spree

by Ramul



Category: Overlord (Triumph Video Games)
Genre: Gen, Gnarl was giving cleaning advice I swear, Humour, Mellow Hills, Parody, Robots, Sheep, Spree village, alien - Freeform, flying saucer, smart Minions, stupid Overlord
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-11-21
Updated: 2019-11-21
Packaged: 2021-02-26 00:20:14
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,443
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21514429
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Ramul/pseuds/Ramul
Summary: A flying saucer lands in the Mellow Hills and the Overlord has to take care of it.
Kudos: 1





	Saucers over Spree

**Author's Note:**

> This was originally written in 2013 and the idea for it is even older, hence it is based on the first game without the addon or sequel.

The day in Mellow Hills was like any other day before. The sun shone, the birds chirped, the sheep grazed on the fields and the grass was being green.  
What was not like any day before was a large gleaming object that could only be described as a flying, metallic soup plate hovering through the sky. Seemingly unable to decide where to go in the lush, hilly environment, it flew here and there until it metaphorically shrugged and inched down to land in a small valley. A curious sheep walked up, watching a metal tongue extend from the flying plate and a door above open after the tongue reached the grass.  
The sheep stared on as a... creature stepped out of the door. It was dressed in a sparkly, grey dress and the parts that were not covered by the strange fabric resembled a hybrid of a malnourished, grey-skinned child and a housefly. It strode regally over the metal tongue and when it reached the grass-covered soil it stopped, just in front of the sheep. The creature bowed and began to speak to the sheep in a clicking language that has never been heard in the Mellow Hills or anywhere else. The sheep just stared back and blinked a few times. Seeing this, the creature reached into its dress and pulled out a beeping metal box with lots of lights, antennae and buttons on it.  
„What are ya doin' with mah sheep?“  
Both the sheep and the creature from the metallic plate looked towards the source of the sound. The shepherd for the pastures in this area waved his arms while he ran down the hill.  
„Those are my sheep, don't touch 'em!“ The shepherd came to a sliding halt.  
The creature turned to the sheep and began to speak in its strange language again, gesticulating in the direction of the shepherd, who was slowly getting red-faced from anger. The sheep stared at the creature for a moment, then faced the shepherd again.  
„Those are my sheep, I said, go back into that plate of yours!“ the shepherd shouted and waved his stick. He looked like he was not afraid to use it on the small, wimpy-looking creature, should it not go away.  
The creature reached into its dress again and pulled out an elongated contraption. It pushed one of its buttons and the object emitted a ray of green light that hit the shepherd, who in turn... just exploded. The sheep looked on as a rain of blood splatters, entrails and other shepherd parts that were falling everywhere around the place the man once was, including on the sheep itself. Once parts had all fallen and the sight became uninteresting again, it turned to the creature responsible for bringing this unexpected change to the landscape.  
„Baaah“.  
The creature's face lit up as the box it pulled out before made an array of beeping sounds.  
„Baaah“, the creature answered.

„Black marble, are you serious!?“ the red minion named Blotch looked at Flint in disbelief.  
„What, it's a great rock for building!“ came the response.  
„And it has style, something not many rocks have,“ Minnow chimed in.  
Flint just snorted. „You really need to inform yourselves on the properties of rocks. First, marble is too soft, a few times of Overlord clanking over it and it will look like crap. Second, marble can't handle acidic environments, the fumes coming from the ground will ruin it, if the collective stink of the greens doesn't take care of it first. No offense, Fungus.“  
„None taken. What will you suggest then, Blotch? Staying classy and use basalt?“  
Flint groaned. „Nearly everything here is already basalt, the Tower could use some variation. Why not quartzite or imported larvikite?“  
Now, everyone stared at Flint. Minnow found his words first. „ _Larvikite?_ What kind of rock is that for a dark tower, that damn material _sparkles_!“  
Flint wanted to give an answer, but Fungus interrupted him. „Shh, I think he is coming!“  
Now, the others could hear the clanking steps quickly approaching, too. As the source of the steps came into sight, the four minions put stupid grins and enthusiasm on their faces.  
„Greetings, mastah!“ Minnow said.  
„Mastah“, Blotch called out.  
„Maaastaahhgraglbaglaah“, Flint uttered, his tongue hanging out and his eyes crossed.  
The Overlord gave them a short glance and clanked on, until he vanished behind a turn. The minions stared into the direction he went in silence until they were sure he was out of hearing range, before they focused their attention on each other again. Blotch spoke up first.  
„Flint, acting dumber than the Overlord in his presence doesn't mean acting dumber than an average Spree inhabitant. It's only to preserve the Overlord's self-esteem and not a contest.“  
„What? The dumber I act, the bigger his self-esteem gets“, Flint retorted. „Also, Gnarl really picked out a particularly dull hammer out of the lot. You can never know how dumb is dumb enough.“  
„Be happy he is still intelligent enough to take off his armour when he takes a dump“, Minnow said with intense disgust and sorrow in the face. Judging by the expression and his age, he was likely speaking from experience.  
„I think he looked conspiciously like heading towards Gnarl. And it looked important“, Fungus changed the topic.  
Blotch's face lit up. „Maybe Gnarl found some work to do? Hurry up, I don't want to miss what they have to discuss!“  
And with this, all four ran in the same direction their master went.

As always, the discussion that took place in the throne room was more a case of Gnarl giving a monologue with the Overlord standing next to him and staring off into space.  
„...they say it's a flying dish of some sort. Worse yet, the ...inhabitants of this airborne kitchen utensil were abducting the sheep of the Mellow Hills' farmers. And-“  
„No one steals minions' sheepies!“ a brown interrupted.  
„-your minions would be furious if the sheep were gone. But more importantly, no sheep means less lifeforce and less food for Spree, which in turn means less taxes, and we can't have this, can we?“  
The Overlord stared off into space in approval.  
Gnarl clapped into his hands once. „Then it's decided! I suggest you to enter the area through the Spree portal, so you can listen to what the villagers have to say about it and do the right preparations. Now go and send the floating porcelain into the oversized drawer it belongs, Master! Meanwhile“, Gnarl added with a chuckle, „I will tend to the throne room getting cleaned.“ He leered over at the scantily-clad servant maidens. „It looks kind of dirty, don't you think?“  
Blotch turned around to face the other three minions and grinned. „What did I tell you? New fun!“  
The others were similarly exhilarated; it was nearly a year since the wizard who was possessed by the old Overlord got defeated. In the time afterwards hardly anything has happened, aside from reminding a few people from Spree or Heaven's Peak where the portals to drop off the taxes were.  
Rather than wait for the Overlord to use the portal, they immediately hurried down into the Spawning Pits to be present when the Overlord called them.

The Overlord and his horde arrived in a tumult. Spree was usually a sleepy town that got upset from such extraordinarily usual events like the migrating geese flying over the Mellow Hills a few days too early or too late. Accordingly, all hell was loose after such an extraordinarily unusual event that had supposedly happened, according to Gnarl. The people they saw were running around like headless chickens on fire, shouting various things.  
„We were living in sin, now the demons come to get us all!“ an old man shook his walking stick to emphasize his words.  
A middle-aged man ran into the other direction, screaming „They took my wife, they took my wife!“  
He ran past a young woman, who gave him a desperate look, then shouted „I don't wanna die a virgin!“ (Blotch assumed she was lying about the last part).  
„Sire, do you notice how they are mostly running into the direction of the marketplace? I think you should go there. If most of the people went there, the chances are the best for finding out more about what has happened“, Gnarl's voice rang out of thin air.  
A few seconds later, the Overlord made a wooden turn to the right and trudged forwards, the horde of minions in tow.  
As they arrived at the marketplace, they could see Gnarl was right: the majority of the people were standing there and shouted in the general direction of the inn. More precisely, in the general direction of a table standing in front of the inn, as that was were Spree's mayor Archie was standing on so he could better see the crowd. As an immigrant from Ruboria, he stood out from the other people; while Spree depended on its sheep and pumpkins to the point even the women looked like sheep and the men looked like pumpkins, Archie looked like a pirate that fell into a barrel of gravy. He was unsuccessfully trying to overshout the crowd that demanded answers from. The crowd actually started getting silent when they could hear the clanking footsteps of the one who had freed them from Melvin's reign of terror and Khan's reign of rage, and moved aside to make way for the Overlord, who was heading towards the table with Archie on top. He stopped as soon as he had an unobstructed view on the mayor.  
„So, you heard of the recent events, too?“ Archie began the conversation. „The people around Spree have been reporting about a plate hovering above the hills, before some sort of metal spiders have shown up and started abducting the sheep from their pastures. And they are attacking anyone that comes too close to them or the sheep!“  
„Sire, that sounds bad,“ Gnarl spoke up. „Whatever is causing this trouble can't be good for us in the end. Jenna, scrub this place. Gently.“  
„I plead you, help us, Dark Lord. Our wellbeing depends on those sheep. Old Jack reported he saw how the plate descended to the north, maybe the metal spiders abducting the sheep can be stopped from there.“  
„Help us! Help us!“ one of the villagers called out. Then, the others slowly started to join in, resulting in a swelling chant of „Help us!“, louder and louder, while they formed a new path, leading straight to the northern gate. The overlord walked through this path with the minions going in front of him; they were happy to get away from the chanting people as soon as possible.

Beyond the north gates laid Spree's currently sheepless sheep pastures in all their idyllic glory. Fields of short-eaten, bright green grass peppered with flowers of nearly every colour exchanged with wooded areas, small patches of wheat, sunflower and pumpkin fields. The sunflowers were already taller than a man and the pumpkins, of a pale yellow colour in this time in the summer, glistened in the sun. The air rang with the symphony of many birds and was filled with the fluttering, colourful wings of the butterflies visiting the flowers. The whole place smelled of dew, freshly-mowed meadows and flowers.  
Then the wind turned and the stench of the green minions covered up everything.  
The Overlord stomped along the path that led through the meadows. Sooner or later he would encounter the problem that was bothering Spree's villagers so much. Gnarl, meanawhile, was busy shouting out his disdain over the scenery through the Tower Heart link, when he was not offering suggestions to make it look better, mostly suggestions that involved fire or strewn-around corpses. His mood lightened immensely when he spotted something ahead.  
„My pleas were finally heard! Just look at this wonderfully accentuating red in the green, look at how the strewn entrails elegantly break up the monotony of the grass blades with their soft curves! This really adds atmosphere to the place!“  
As the Overlord and his horde neared the atmospheric change in the landscape, it became evident it was one of Spree's villagers, distributed around an area of roughly eight square meters. The minions were not sure what could cause a villager to enter such a state, so they hurried forwards to take a closer look without ...accidentally hurting their master's self-esteem in the process.  
„Broken bones, torn muscles and a general disorder of the organ positions“, Peter declared. „My diagnosis is that he exploded.“  
„But how? It doesn't smell of gunpowder and the grass is devoid of any scorch marks, like in a normal explosion“, Flammy asked.  
„Yes, and neither is there any smell of magic lingering in the air“, Minnow added. „Whatever caused this, it must have been using a method to do this we are not familiar with.“  
Fungus was silently chewing on a piece of liver he found in the grass.  
„Fungus, stop destroying the evidence!“ Flint shouted at him. As an answer, Fungus just pointed in the direction of the Overlord, who was now dangerously close.  
Immediately, the other minions followed suit and shoved other pieces of the villager into their mouths. Flammy broke out in violent coughs because he had stabbed himself with a bone splinter in the palate.  
„Well, looks like either this villager should have cut down on the beans when he had constipation, or something blew the poor chap up“, Gnarl commented. „Very likely one of those metal spiders Archie was talking about. How handy, it left a trail in the grass for you to follow, Master. But be careful when you meet whatever caused the trail, as it is doubtful your armour will prevent you from becoming like this villager and it's hard being a proper Overlord with your body parts strewn around the landscape. You are doing well, Jenna, that place is almost clean!“  
The Overlord called back his minions from eating the villager's remains and followed the track in the grass. Other, similar tracks crossed it occasionally; they were guaranteed to encounter its cause sooner or later, whether they accidentally took another trackway or not. Hunk spotted it first, as it walked around on a hill.  
The Overlord neared it carefully, staying hidden behind the trees as long as possible. The thing that caused the tracks in the grass hardly looked like a spider, as Mildew noticed, annoyed with Spree's lousy taxonomy skills, but more like an upright barrel with six vaguely insect-like legs. Unfortunately, the walking barrel had noticed them, too, and started to blink a red light. The Overlord hestitated at the sight. Now, the barrel emitted a sound, like a humming that quickly grew higher. The minions, assuming this sound was connected to whatever caused the villager to explode, panicked and ran in all directions. This saved their life, as the barrel now shot a beam of green light at them. It hit a tree instead that blew up in a shower of splinters and leaves a few seconds after being hit.  
The minions stopped running, staring at the splintered tree stump, then at the barrel, which was now steaming, but silent otherwise.  
„Looks like it needs time to recharge that weapon. Quick, attack it before it can fire again!“ Gnarl told his master. The Overlord immediately commanded his minions to engage the machine. The horde ran in a straight line to the walking barrel, which quickly opened a slot and and fired an elongated object out. One of the browns screamed, but it didn't stop the horde from swamping the machine and breaking it apart before the humming of an incoming exploding shot returned.  
Hunk looked at the bent and broken pieces. „Disappointing, isn't it?“ Then he grinned and pulled out a bowl-shaped piece of metal with a few wires hanging off it out of the metallic mess. „Mine!“ he declared and put the bowl on his head.  
Minnow, meanwhile, tended to the minion who had been hit by the machine. It had shot an ordinary short spear, which now stuck out of Flint's chest. Flint appeared to be dead, but that was nothing a blue like Minnow couldn't fix. But first the spear had to be removed.  
The moment he touched the spear's shaft, Flint's eyes shot open and he yelled „Surprise!“ Minnow landed on his rear from the shock. „Didn't hit any vital organs, just- Ack!“ Flint said, as Minnow yanked the spear out of his chest, then thrust it back in, this time severing the aorta and killing him.  
„Not. Funny.“ Minnow growled. Then he removed the spear a second time and worked his magics to revive Flint.

The minions quickly found out the barrels had a hard time focusing on multiple targets and they couldn't aim the last few moments before firing. Unfortunately, they had to find this out at the expense of Smirk and Goulash, who were now decorating the landscape alongside of several other farmers and shepherds the minions encountered, and in the case of Goulash, the entire right side of Blotch.  
Blotch was happier about this situation as one would expect, as he was glad no greens had been hit by the rays – the smell of a brown's innards was already horrible enough, he didn't dare to imagine how greens would have smelled from the inside.  
„Sire, I suggest you to move your minions sideways when the metal spiders are ready to fire to keep your casualities at minimum“, Gnarl stated the obvious. „We seem to be on the right track, as the frequency we encounter these things is increasing. Soon, the sheepies in distress can be saved from the evil monsters and returned into the loving hands of the shepherds“, he added. „Jenna, it looks like this can't be cleaned without aid. Grubby, go get the special cleaning pills, the blue ones!“  
Neither the Overlord nor the minions paid attention to Gnarl and Jenna's cleaning troubles, as they ran into another walking barrel at a close distance in the wooded part they were crossing. They followed the usual routine, with the minions running in a tight group at the machine, listening intently for the humming to avoid the beam. When they noticed the machine was not aiming at them, but their master, panic broke out. Their master was probably too slow and certainly too dull to guess where the beam was aimed at. Most started to run in circles, a few brave minions positioned themselves in the line of fire and... all without purpose, since a green they sent out to scout the area in front of them jumped the machine from behind a moment before it discharged, causing it to fall over and explode a branch above, which only led to a red having headaches due to the branch falling on said red's head. Peter smacked the green on the head, while the others were busy dispatching the barrel.  
„Follow orders, nearly got mastah killed because of spidie!“  
„Me followed orders, said to take out any spidies that are encountered!“ the green retorted.  
Instead of answering, Peter grabbed the green by the neck and gave him a long stare in the left eye, pulling the eyelid open with the free hand. He let go of the green and put both hands over his face, and annoyedly muttered which idiot assigned a half-blind minion to scouting. He then quickly remembered where these hands had been seconds ago and lowered them with disgust.  
Oblivious to his near-death experience, the Overlord trudged on and left the wooded area behind, having free view ahead of him again. The trees ended nearly at the back of a hill and behind the hill they seemed to have found the source of the walking barrels as well as their troubles.  
„Hm, looks like some sort of metallic soup plate to me... no, it's a saucer, complete with a tiny cup on the top, how ador- ahem, disgusting“, Gnarl spoke up. „It seems like there is some kind of entrance in it. Yes, Jenna, now you are cleaning it all the right way, yees...“  
To their luck, the metal spiders seemed to be further away from the saucer, as they could not see a single one of them in the valley the saucer was standing in. There were, however, a lot of trails in the grass around it, all of them leading to a metallic protrusion, which seemed to serve as a ramp. The machines must have led all the sheep they could find in the surroundings up into the metallic dish. Speaking of sheep, the minions were reminded what they were missing on the trek to this place the most. On the way, they did not see a single sheep and now each one of them longed to sink their weapons or claws into the soft wool of a sheep. The thought of doing this in the saucer gave them new motivation and they were on the edge of running downhill and straight into the door at the base of the ramp.  
They still had enough discipline left to wait for their master, who they were now intently looking at. They could nearly feel the rusty gears of the Overlord's mind turning while he tried to figure out what to do next. After half a minute, he did the most logical thing and stomped forwards, into the direction of the saucer.

The ramp did indeed lead to an opening in the side of the saucer and the inside of the saucer was something neither the Overlord nor the minions ever saw before. Everything inside was made out of polished metal, only broken up by many small lights. Minnow noticed the lights were not giving off heat, which meant they were not made by fire, and they were not smelling of magic. In fact, neither the saucer nor the walking barrels had any trace of magic on them, now he thought about it.  
What powers were behind this?  
Most of the saucer's inside consisted of narrow hallways that went parallel to the saucer's outer rim, with doors opening off the hallways. Gnarl mentioned their goal was most likely located near the hub of the saucer, before he became too busy with giving Jenna tips on cleaning the throne room. Accordingly, they looked for doors that were on the convex walls. Said doors were, like everything else inside the saucer, strange, as they consisted of metal plates that slid upwards when anyone came close to them. Not every door did this, though, some remained closed. The minions hoped the closed doors led to unimportant parts of the saucer, as the beeping, glowing interior of it made them feel all kinds of uneasy. Their collective hope became fulfilled, as they entered a wide, round room.  
If the hallways were strange, then this room was a whole new level of it. The walls were occupied by sloping metal tables with lots of levers, glowing lights and other, stranger objects of different size and colour projecting from them and above them were large... windows showing the Mellow Hills as well as parts of the saucer's interior. The minions knew they were not windows, as there were several layers of metal and hallways in between the room and the outer hull. In the middle of all this, a chair that could make the Overlord's throne run away crying in shame was fastened to the ground, its back facing the horde.  
The chair began to turn slowly around.  
Expecting a magnificient mastermind behind all this, the minions collectively gasped in disappointment as the one sitting in it turned out to be small, thin and of a sickly grey colour. It elegantly rose from the chair and positioned itself in an imposing manner, with its arms stretched out to both sides.  
Then, in the most regal, commanding and impressing voice the minions ever heard, it began to speak.  
„Baaaah.“  
The minions... just stared. They had expected it saying anything, from a threat to an offering of surrender, but not this.  
„Sheepie?“ a brown asked.  
And with this, all hell broke loose. The minions were so sheep-starved they simply lost mind and manners. The creature was not able to say or do anything, or even to defend itself as the minions were already upon it, hacking and slashing and tearing it limb to limb. Since the creature was reduced to a green stain on the ground rather quickly due to its stature, the minions managed to smash the chair it was sitting on, most of the fake windows and half of the beeping metal tables before they calmed down enough to think clearly again. Somewhere in the room a repeating howl started and many of the glowing lamps changed colour to red.  
„Ooh Jenna, now it is clean, wonderfully clean, you did a magnificient job. Where were we again?“ Gnarl spoke up after his temporary absence. „Ah. Looks like you have taken care of it yourself, Sire. I don't think this saucer is exactly safe at this point and would suggest you leave it quickly. I will send Giblet over to examine this thing later, if the weapons the metal spiders have can't be put to use, at least the metal can be.“ With this, the Overlord and his horde made their way rimwards through the hallways to leave the now howling and red-blinking saucer.

Archie turned out to be right about the control of the machines. After they left the saucer they could see lots of metal spiders that were not in the valley before lying in the grass, motionless. Also, the bottom of the saucer seemed to have fallen off, lying in the grass below, and lots of very confused sheep were standing on and around it. The minions were happy that the mission was a success, but disappointed because of the lack of sheep in it; the herds of freed sheep were a no-no. They were the reason for the fight against the saucer and its inhabitants and the minions knew that letting the sheep live would result in more taxes from the Spree villagers, if not more. Leaving the saucer behind, they made their way to the next tower gate.

Unbeknownst to them, the small teacup of the saucer began to rumble, before a jet of white-hot flame shot out of its underside and launched it into the skies. Inside, sitting in a chair that looked like a more modest version of the chair in the saucer, was the sheep that had met the creature first.


End file.
